Sea conditions hamper rescue

A SEARCH was under way last night for at least 11 Sri Lankan asylum seekers missing in the Indian Ocean after their boat sank while heading for Australia.

Search aircraft and ships were combing an area about 330 nautical miles north-west of the Cocos Islands, where the vessel sank.

In a sign of the difficulty the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, faces over the asylum seekers, he said he would send one of the nation's top diplomats, John McCarthy, to work with Sri Lanka on the matter.

An Australia-bound tanker, LNG Pioneer, and a Taiwanese fishing boat, FV Kuamg, had picked up 27 survivors and one body by last night.

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But as nightfall approached, the drama was still unfolding. The crew of an RAAF P-3 Orion patrol plane spotted two more survivors in the water and dropped a liferaft to them. Three others were seen clinging to debris and trying to propel it towards the raft.

The Sri Lankans had been in the water for more than 14 hours when they were picked up by the Taiwanese fishing boat.

The Home Affairs Minister, Brendan O'Connor, said he held grave concern for the safety of those still missing.

The captain of the tanker, which rescued 18 of the asylum seekers, said that when his ship arrived on the scene on Sunday night the boat had already sunk.

''There were people everywhere around with some oil spill," said Nikola Brzica. "They were in the water, and about 10 to 20 minutes later it got dark. I was not able to see any more.

"Some of them [were rescued] when we heard the crying and big noise from the sea. Some of them came over the gangway, some of them from the poop deck, some of them were in a liferaft which is still floating there."

He said the plan was to take the survivors to Christmas Island once the search and rescue operation was called off.

Confirmation that the boat was carrying more Tamil asylum seekers added to the political pressure on Mr Rudd.

Another 78 Tamils have spent more than a fortnight on board the Australian Customs vessel Oceanic Viking, which remains off Indonesia as the asylum seekers refuse to disembark and demand to be taken to Australia.

Mr Rudd said yesterday he had spoken by phone to the Sri Lankan President, Mahinda Rajapaksa, about the flow of refugees from that country's civil war.

Last night he said he was sending Mr McCarthy, who has just returned as high commissioner to India, as special envoy to Sri Lanka to deal with the growing refugee problem.